Cheltenham band shortlisted for European music festival

News - Cheltenham’s very own Lounge Fly are amongst 40 top bands hoping to wow crowds at Benicàssim this summer.

Exciting news for Cheltenham as local band Lounge Fly has made the shortlist to play at one of Europe’s largest and most popular music festivals – Festival Internacional de Benicàssim in Spain.

The group will now have to fight it out with other acts successful in making the final 40 amongst the thousands of entries sent in to an unsigned band competition called Fast Track to FIB Heineken, organised by Supajam in partnership with Apple.

Lounge Fly have proved a popular act with music fans across Gloucestershire, having been nominated for the BBC Introducing stage at Cheltenham’s Wychwood Music Festival in June. They have just recorded an acoustic set for BBC Radio Gloucestershire and begun to amass quite a fan base – Rick Wakeman recently championed the band on his breakfast show, saluting them as a band of outstanding quality.

After submitting tracks online, the band was voted into the final by the public. Apple will now be promoting the competition finalists through its Quicktime player, which is said to have the potential to reach an audience of around seven million worldwide.

After this, the contenders will be whittled down to a further five finalists and a battle of the bands will commence at London’s Pigalle Club in June 2010, after which the victor will walk away with a guaranteed performance slot at Benicàssim 2010.

Lead singer Susannah Moffat spoke of the band’s surprise at making the shortlist: ‘It’s one of those things you enter and then forget about, as the odds of making the final few are extremely slim. We’re delighted to have got this far – it hasn’t quite sunk in how close we are to playing with some incredible bands in front of 50,000 people.’

If they win this prestigious competition, Lounge Fly will have the opportunity to play with chart-toppers such as Lily Allen, Kasabian, Dizzee Rascal and The Prodigy, and if they manage to impress, the festival could prove a real springboard to stardom.

SoGlos.com
7 May 2010